1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk device that rotates a disk-like storage medium (for example, a magnetic disk) and accesses the rotating storage medium, and a slider that floats over the storage medium by the action of the airflow caused by the rotation of the storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, many types of magnetic disk devices including built-in type ones and external type ones have been used with computers. In recent years, magnetic disk devices have become incorporated not only in computers in a narrow sense but also in video devices, digital cameras, car navigation systems and the like.
Such magnetic disk devices can be generally categorized into the contact start stop (CSS) method and the load/unload method. According to the CSS method, when the magnetic disk stops rotating, the magnetic head slider holding the magnetic head for accessing the magnetic disk remains on the magnetic disk. According to the CSS method, when the magnetic disk starts rotating, the airflow caused by the rotation makes the magnetic head slider float slightly over the magnetic disk surface, and the magnetic head accesses the magnetic disk in this state.
On the other hand, according to the load/unload method, when the magnetic disk stops rotating, the magnetic head slider is moved to a waiting position outside the circumference of the magnetic disk (this movement is referred to as “unloading”), and once the magnetic disk starts rotating, the magnetic head slider is moved to a position over the magnetic head (this movement is referred to as “loading”).
With the recent increase of the recording density of the magnetic disk, preventing the magnetic head slider from coming into contact with the magnetic disk to stably make the slider float slightly over the disk has become one of significant objectives. To this end, various techniques have been proposed (for example, see the Patent Documents 1 and 2).
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-32905
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-109710